He’s well on his way
When healthy, Chris Sale has been good. Great, even. There’s little question about that. As a fastball-slider guy with a changeup mixed in occasionally, you probably won’t be surprised to know that the reason Sale has had an epic-tier career is because both pitches bamboozle hitters.
With the White Sox, Sale threw his fastball at least half the time (different pitch classification systems disagree on the split of four-seamers versus sinkers). With the Red Sox, the fastball usage decreased to about half the time fairly consistently, with sliders being thrown around a third of the time. Last year, the Braves tweaked his pitch mix, moving his fastball rate down to around 45 percent, and boosting his slider usage to around 40 percent.
Which brings us to this year, where Sale is leaning on his slider more than ever before — he’s close to throwing it more than half the time, and it’s the first time he’s thrown more sliders than fastballs in his career (were the season to end today, anyway).
You can get why this is occurring. First, the slider is disastrous for hitters: it’s always been above-average for a slider, and his teeny-tiny .185 xwOBA-against on it this year is the lowest it’s been since 2018. On the flip side, Sale’s well-documented velocity-slash-arm-angle-slash-location-issues (all part of the game nexus of early-season adjustments and finding himself, it seems to me) have caused some problems for him: his four-seamer still has a horrifying .414 xwOBA-against, and its lowest whiff rate for his primary fastball since he was primarily throwing things that moved like sinkers before the 2020s. “Throw a devastating pitch more” is fine advice, and that’s what Sale is doing to help right his ship.
But, my question is — is he going to keep doing it? Maybe even push that slider usage above 50 percent? Or, are we going to see something that reverts back to what he did last year, with his four-seamer picking up substantial steam as the season winds on?
Daily Notes
Record: 17-18
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .263 / .238 (Season rank: 13th | 11th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .231 / .234 (Season rank: 17th | 13th)
Yesterday’s homers: 0
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 0
Record when out-xwOBAing: 12-8 (League: 393-137)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 5-10 (League: 137-393)
Record when out-wOBAing: 16-2 (League: 452-80)
Record when out-wOBAed: 1-16 (League: 80-452)
Record when outhomering: 8-3 (League: 273-79)
Record when outhomered: 3-10 (League: 79-273)